What happens if the Cardinals, Rockies, D-Backs and Dodgers all finish with the exact same record?

Entering play Monday, the four National League postseason hopefuls listed in the headline above sit within three games of one another in the standings. The Rockies have played one fewer game than each of the other three clubs, but if that fact were ignored and the season ended abruptly, the Colorado team would win the NL West pennant and the Cardinals would head to Milwaukee to face the Brewers in the wild-card game.

Every September at Baseball Musings, David Pinto tracks the chances of a “massive tie scenario.” His latest update shows a 0.0131 chance of a three-way tie for the NL West pennant and a 0.012 probability for a three-way tie for the second wild-card spot, meaning it’s obviously extremely unlikely that all four clubs will finish with the exact same record.

Nonetheless, MLB has a plan in place for if it happens. First, the three NL West teams would be granted A, B, and C designations based on their records against one another during the regular season. As it currently stands, the D-Backs have a lead in their season series against both the Dodgers and the Rockies, and Los Angeles has a lead in its season series against Colorado. But the D-Backs and Rockies play each other seven more times in the regular season (starting with a four-game set opening Monday) and the Dodgers have three games apiece left against both Colorado and Arizona, with no lead in any of the relevant season series still insurmountable.

If all or any finish with even records in season series, the designations will be determined by those clubs’ intradivision records, which are all within one game of each other entering Monday night’s games. Breaking a tie in that department would come down to intraleague records, followed by winning percentage in the last half of intraleague games. It’s complicated, and the full list of factors determining teams’ designations is here.

(Matt Kartozian/USA TODAY Sports)

But in the case of this hypothetical four-way tie, two NL West clubs would host games on Monday, Oct. 1 — the day after the regular season is scheduled to end. The Cardinals, for having no claim to a division title, would be the visiting team in one of those games.

To make this easier, let’s say for the sake of the post that the various intradivisional tiebreak determinants favor the D-Backs, then the Dodgers. This is fantasy-world stuff, but in this fantasy world, the D-Backs would likely be best served hosting another NL West team — no matter what pitcher that team has lined up — for reasons I’m about to explain. And, specific personnel matchups aside, it’s not really clear whether the Dodgers would be better off choosing to go on the road to Arizona (counterintuitive though that seems) or hosting the Cardinals.

Again, it’s complicated. But let’s say, for the sake of this hypothetical, that the D-Backs wind up hosting the Rockies and the Dodgers play St. Louis in Los Angeles.

If the Cardinals win that game, they earn the second Wild Card spot, and the winner of the Diamondbacks-Rockies game becomes the NL West winner. Simple enough.

But if the Dodgers beat the Cardinals, they would then go on the road to play the winner of the Arizona-Colorado game to determine which is the NL West winner and which club goes on to the wild-card game. Hosting the divisional opponent instead of the Cardinals — as the Diamondbacks do in my hypothetical — gives a team its best chance of reaching the proper playoffs with only one extra game.

Does any of this make sense? I’m trying my best to put it in plainer terms than the MLB.com post does, but it’s not easy.

The Rockies will wrap up the regular season at home, but the Dodgers finish on the road in San Francisco and the D-Backs end in San Diego. So for either of those clubs, there exists a small but fascinating — and utterly nervewracking — possibility of playing four consecutive days in four different cities: First on the road in Game 162, then to beat the Cardinals at home in Game 163, then back on the road to face the winner of the other tiebreak game in Game 164, then, if they lose that one, on to Milwaukee for the wild-card game.

Long story short: It’s a mess, and anyone with no vested interest in any of the relevant teams should probably be rooting for the biggest tie possible. Also, the Phillies are still hanging around the fringes of the wild-card race too, and the MLB.com article offers no explanation for what happens if five teams tie for two postseason spots. I think at that point you probably just cancel baseball, or enact some sort of round-robin rock-paper-scissors tournament.

What happens if the Cardinals, Rockies, D-Backs and Dodgers all finish with the exact same record?

The D-Backs and Rockies kick off a huge four-game series Monday night.

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